SLU AT Student Feels Empowered During a Year-long Ice Hockey Experience at Lindenwood-Belleville

SLU AT Clinical Site Spotlight - Lindenwood University-Belleville
By: Madeleine Hauck (SLU MAT Class of 2017)

This semester, I have had the opportunity to work with the Lindenwood-Belleville Men’s and Women’s Ice Hockey teams. I am very grateful for this opportunity, as I have grown up around hockey and there are few opportunities to get experience with the sport. I enjoy the fast pace of the game, the physicality, and the dedication of the athletes. The demands of hockey are not for all athletes. I have come to realize that the hockey athletes I have worked with are some of the hardest working individuals I have been exposed to in my clinical experiences. I appreciate the effort that they put in on the ice, in the classroom, and in the Athletic Training room. My role as an Athletic Training Student is more rewarding when the athletes are dedicated to rehabilitating injuries and geting back on the ice sooner and healthier.

My preceptor this semester is Tim Woodstock MAT, ATC. Tim has been a great resource to learn from in my last semester as a student. He has been through an MAT program and respects my knowledge. Tim gives me the autonomy to take on whatever I would like on the ice and in the clinic under his supervision. I am able to refine my skills and feel confident in my independence. Tim also has many informational nuggets to share with me. He has a great skill for making whatever he needs out of what he has in front of him. I have learned not only different ways to manage injuries, but also how to make efficient use of what resources you have.

It has been great to be at Lindenwood-Belleville for my full year of clinicals. When I come in for treatment hours at the Athletic Training Facility, I feel very comfortable. Everyone there is a familiar and friendly face that I know trusts my skill set, but will also be there to help me whenever I need it. Being at one clinical site for a full school year has really been beneficial to understanding what it will be like when I am employed in the future. I am very thankful for everyone on the staff at Lindenwood-Belleville for taking in a Billiken for a year and providing such a great clinical site!

This is one of a series of posts by the Saint Louis University Athletic Training students featuring their clinical site and their preceptors. The number, quality and diversity of clinical instruction are major assets for the SLU AT Program.

SLU Athletic Training Program - Professional preparation in a Jesuit context

The Saint Louis University Athletic Training Program, in conjunction with Fr. Robert Murphy SJ from SLU Campus Ministry, developed a video highlighting the influence of SLU's Jesuit context on the program.

The video features interviews with alum Dustin Jamboretz MAT, ATC (MAT Class of 2016), and current students Madeleine Hauck (MAT Class of 2017) and Mike Milek (MAT Class of 2018).  All three of these students also attended Jesuit High Schools.

SLU AT Student Benefits from Varied Perspectives at Multiple Sites through Unstoppable Athletics

SLU AT Summer Field Experience Spotlight - Unstoppable Athletics, St. Louis, MO

By: Bailey Draheim (SLU MAT Class of 2017)

My summer field experience is with Dr. Matt Leonard at Unstoppable Athletics. Fellow students Ali Graham and Mada Hauck are also at the site this summer. It has been a great site so far with many different experiences and locations.  At one site, we work mainly with high school and college baseball and softball players. 

We see a variety of rehab and strengthening programs for individuals and teams. It is a great learning environment where Matt is very open to questions and allows us to be as hands on as possible. Because Matt is a Doctor of Physical Therapy, Doctor of Chiropractic, and Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist, he provides us with different ways to do things that we may not have known. This allows us to be exposed to a unique learning experience that we don’t get to see at the high schools and colleges we are placed at during the year. 

The other sites we get to visit during our clinical experience are a chiropractic office in Troy, MO and a diet clinic that is run by Melissa Leonard. The chiropractic office allowed us to see the different steps that are taken in rehab depending on the profession. At the diet clinic, you sit through different client evaluations to see how the past week has been and how they have improved since the prior week. Everyone is given meals and a diet plan to follow for a certain amount of time. 

Overall, this is a great and educational summer experience that has allows students to see the other sides of health care and rehab. 

Students in the Saint Louis University Athletic Training Program have a required field experience in the summer between their two professional years in the program.  This blog post details a student's reflection on their experience.

New SLU AT Student Gets a Wide View of AT Through Numerous Clinical Sites

New AT Student Blog Post - Justin Ullom (SLU MAT Class of 2018)

More often than not, I was able to attend Affton High School in order to observe Mada Hauck, whose preceptor is Becky Stigen ATC. This training room is small, and it gets crowded at times, but it showed me the best way to make use of one’s space, no matter how limited. Observing a high school, I saw multiple sports throughout the semester and therefore learned many injuries that are common with their respective sports. I also learned that it is important to be able to communicate to all types of people, whether they are shy or outgoing, in order to best get your information across to them. The sports I observed most were basketball and volleyball. While there were no major injuries that occurred during my time observing, I was able to see many preventative or rehabilitative methods for those who had chronic injuries, or multi-sport athletes who were just coming off of an injury from a previous sport and ended up carrying it over to their new sport. 

I also observed at a Parkway South High School. While at Parkway South, I observed Sarah and her preceptor Mike Tzianos ATC. Mike was a very active athletic trainer, as he moved around and rotated from sport to sport in order to check on people, although we spent most of our time in the wrestling room watching practice. Mike explained that we were spending most of the time in the wrestling room because of all the sports that were practicing that day, wrestling was the one that was most likely going to have some sort of injury compared to others. We did watch a short scrimmage between the junior varsity women’s basketball team and the varsity women’s basketball team. One of the more interesting things that occurred during this observation was when a male basketball player came into the training room with a peeling callus that was about twice the size of a half dollar bill. Mike simply took some toenail clippers and carefully cut off the dead skin in order to expose the new skin to air. This observation taught me to make sure to keep a watchful eye on the most high-risk sport when it comes to being an athletic trainer at a high school. 

Another time I observed Tim Howell EdD, ATC, CSCS at the Webster Groves Ice Rink for the college club hockey championship. There was one instance where a player slipped and crashed into the boards very hard, and Tim was initially waved over to check on him, but it was then concluded that it was nothing to worry about so he did not have to go check on the player at the bench. There was one player who had a finger cut open, and Tim checked to see if he had gotten stitches as instructed. This taught me to always follow up on previous injuries in order to make sure that the athlete is doing everything they are supposed to do in order to help the injury heal.

I also observed Bailey Draheim and Tammy Pastor ATC for SLU athletics for two different sports. The first time I observed, I watched some track and field competitions. Not much happened at the meet, although we did learn how spine board an athlete out of the pit. While spine boards are seemingly becoming more and more unnecessary, it was still a very interesting learning experience, one that was reinforced a couple weeks later in class, as we learned how to spine board on flat ground. The second time I observed these two was for a tennis tournament. At this observation, Tammy talked about many injuries associated with tennis, as well as other overhand sports. She mentioned that many tennis players will have chronic wrist injuries. This site taught me that it is very important to understand the chronic injuries for any sport that I deal with as an athletic trainer since they will most often be the issues that arise in any athletes I might see. 

This is one of a series of blog posts written by students entering the professional phase of the SLU AT Program as a part of MAT 3000 - AT Student Development II.

SLU AT Student Mentors Younger Students While Learning from Multiple Preceptors at Missouri Baptist University

SLU AT Clinical Site Spotlight - Missouri Baptist University

By: Josh Yanzer (SLU MAT Class of 2016)

For my 2nd Professional Year (PY2) Fall Clinical Rotation I was placed at Missouri Baptist University.  I had not worked with football on any of my other previous rotations as a PY1 except for preseason this summer so I was very excited when I learned that I would actually be with Missouri Baptist’s football team.  It was also really nice to know that I would be working with multiple preceptors there. Meredith Dill ATC, Craig Zurliene ATC, Ashley Broughton ATC, and Emily Lawrence ATC all have different styles of teaching and some prefer doing things differently than the other so there was definitely a lot that I could learn from each of them.  Right from the start I was able to learn different ways to do particular special tests or ways the special tests could be altered base on the size of the Athletic Trainer since Craig and Emily are so different in size.  They also taught me better and more effective ways to write my SOAP notes so that I could include all the information that is needed without being really wordy.  Game days are a blast with all of them even though the days are extremely long.  We all bring in food for dinner and we are all very involved with the game making it a very exciting time. All of them are really big on rehabilitation with their athletes and getting the athletes back to play faster so I have learned to be very organized with my rehab plans because of my preceptors.

Working with football for me is one of the most enjoyable things I have done at a clinical site.  There are so many more athletes on one team that you can make a connecting with and you just never know what the day will bring.  I always have to be on my feet, especially for games and full contact practices because while working football you see so many more injuries than in any other sport and you also see much more severe injuries.  Being a PY2, I have been able to get some really great practice with my evaluation skills and having three preceptors to give feedback on my evaluation skills helps me really improve so that my skills are where they need to be in preparation to being a certified Athletic Trainer.  I am always getting a chance to practice some sort of skill that I learned in class and I have also been able to evaluate injured areas that I have never really looked at before or even just practice my skills on injured areas where I was not confident with my skillset yet.

One of the most rewarding thing about being at Missouri Baptist as a PY2 is I was actually able to help teach and facilitate the learning of Sarah Haenchen, Mada Hauck and Morgan Jasperson, the PY1’s in the class below me.  Being with them was really great because I was not only teaching them but also giving myself a review and figuring out some of my weak areas based on what the questions they asked me.  Not only did I teach them and helped give myself a review but they also reminded me of things that I did not really think of as often.  Since they are currently in the evaluation classes they have all the information fresh in their minds so having them there to help remind me of information that I have since forgotten is a huge help.  It is truly a lot of fun to hang out with all of them and I enjoy seeing them learn and develop their skills just as I am trying to better develop mine.  I have really enjoyed my time at Missouri Baptist University thus far and I hope that I will continue to grow and develop professionally as I continue being a PY2 clinical student there for the Spring Semester. 

This is one of a series of posts by the Saint Louis University Athletic Training students featuring their clinical site and their preceptors. The number, quality and diversity of clinical instruction are major assets for the SLU AT Program.